The present invention relates to a cigar lighter, especially for a motor vehicle, and the like.
It more particularly relates to the lighter body which such a cigar lighter has.
As is known, the lighter body serves as a receptacle for a removable heating plug equipped with a lighter body to light the cigar or cigarette and comprises an electrically conductive lighter socket, with a bottom, bearing internally with the provision of electrical insulation, by means of an attachment device and a first electrically insulating part, a connecting device normally in the form of a bimetallic strip.
This lighter socket comprises clearance openings opposite the blades of the bimetallic strip, able to be connected to the positive terminal of the voltage source, whereas the lighter socket is able to be connected to the negative terminal of the voltage source.
In practice, the lighter body is installed in a region where a number of wires and/or electric cables exist.
To prevent these wires and cables coming to touch the blades of the bimetallic strip accessible through the clearance openings, in document U.S. Pat. No. 2,701,297, it has already been proposed surrounding the lighter socket by an electrically conductive masking socket also serving for the mounting of the lighter socket.
More precisely the lighter socket is slid into an opening of a fixed wall of the vehicle, such as the dashboard or a console thereof serving for the attachment and the mounting of the lighter body, and is kept captive by means of the masking socket screwed onto a threaded portion borne by the rear end of the lighter socket.
Thus the open front end of the masking socket bears against the rear face of the fixed wall, whereas the open front end of the lighter socket has a generally transversally oriented edge bearing on the front or upper face of an end ring of an illuminant ring, which first ring, by its rear face, bears on the front or upper face of the fixed wall.
This fixed wall is thus sandwiched between the ring of the illuminant ring and the open front end of the masking socket.
As a result the assembly of the masking socket with the lighter socket is performed though the rear of the fixed wall and this assembly of the screw-nut type complicates the production of the sockets.
Furthermore in this document the fixed wall is electrically conductive with the result that the return of the current to the earth is performed by means of the said wall.
This therefore requires the destandardization of the lighter socket. Moreover the masking socket bears a lighting source, with the result that an opening has to be created in the masking socket for the lighting of the illuminant ring.
The object of the present invention is to remove these drawbacks and thus to create, in a simple and economical manner, a lighter body having a standard lighter socket and a simplified masking socket, the assembly of which is performed through the front of the fixed wall.